German security agencies shut down world's largest darknet money laundering service

BERLIN (AA) – German security authorities said Wednesday they have shut down the world's largest money laundering service on the darknet.

It is believed to be a German-based server called ChipMixer, Germany's Federal Criminal Police Office and Frankfurt's attorney general's office said.

According to security officials, the server and bitcoins worth about €44 million ($46.6 million) were seized.

The Federal Criminal Police Office and the attorney general's office accused the operators of the service of operating commercial money laundering and a criminal trading platform on the internet.

As the security authorities further explained, the service, which has been in existence since 2017, allegedly received the digital currency Bitcoin from criminal origin to disburse it after a so-called "mixing."

The term "mixing" refers to the disruption of the traceability of the credit of individual owners of cryptocurrencies. The credit balances are selectively mixed with transactions from different senders, piecemealed and sometimes transferred with a time delay.

In the present case involving ChipMixer, the service allegedly divided deposited cryptocurrencies into uniform micro-amounts called "chips," according to the security authorities.

These small amounts are said to have been subsequently commingled to hide the origin of the money. Users were allegedly promised complete anonymity by the service.

Security authorities estimate that €2.8 billion ($2.9 billion) worth of Bitcoins were laundered via ChipMixer. The investigators speak of the world's largest turnover from crypto mixer on the darknet.